Job cuts prompt effort to recall Coos County commissioner

Winston Ross

Friday

Jan 23, 2009 at 12:01 AM

COQUILLE Several counties around the state have been hacking their budgets and laying people off in the wake of cuts in federal timber funding announced and then renounced in the past couple of years. Sheriff’s patrols are scarce, libraries are closed. Some county officials have even murmured about bankruptcy, even though Congress approved a reprieve last fall that keeps at least some of the funding flowing over the next four years.

There’s been plenty of controversy over county leaders’ decisions to act preemptively to stave off the issue as long as possible. The latest debate, in Coos County, has given way to a recall effort.

A group led by the county’s former roadmaster, Larry Van Elsberg, is gathering signatures to oust Commissioner Kevin Stufflebean, who orchestrated the reorganization of the county’s road department, a move that cost 22 of its 39 employees their jobs.

Van Elsberg, of North Bend, who said he retired after a conflict with commissioners about whether to use outside contractors to do roadwork, argues that Stufflebean’s cuts will leave the county incapable of maintaining its roads safely. Of the 18 people now in the department, he said, one is a newly hired roadmaster, four are managers, two are mechanics, one is a bridge inspector and one deals with signs, leaving 10 laborers for cleaning ditches, cutting brush and replacing culverts.

“They’re claiming this move is going to make them more efficient,” Van Elsberg said.

Stufflebean said he’s not surprised at the outrage, given the number of jobs lost and the huge shift in philosophy that the cuts involve. But he laid out a careful rationale for the way the county has moved.

The budget problem wasn’t solved by Congress’ reauthorization of timber payments, Stufflebean said, because the program isn’t being fully funded. The federal government’s payments will be reduced annually to 40 percent four years from now, and then to nothing.

As the commissioner who oversees the county’s road department, Stufflebean called a meeting with the business manager to project budgets for the next five to 10 years, he said.

During the meeting, held around Thanksgiving, Stufflebean learned that the loss in revenue would mean cutting the department to seven members in five years. After further study, the commissioner learned that the county had spent $2.8 million over the past three years in labor and materials to maintain aging equipment, money that would be better spent upgrading to new equipment.

“That was the biggest waste of money,” Stufflebean said.

He also learned that over the past three years, the county had spent 15,000 hours on “road patrol,” which the staff does when there’s no other work for the employees, and 7,000 hours stockpiling rock for use in future projects; and that last year employees took an average of 430 hours a year off, with pay. Beyond that, the department’s expenses had exceeded its revenues in eight of the past 10 years, he said, and fuel costs had increased from $200,000 to $600,000 annually. In the meantime, he said, the county didn’t have enough asphalt to keep the roads paved properly.

“If you don’t have the materials to maintain your roads, what purpose is there in maintaining a large work crew?” Stufflebean said. “We needed to start investing in asphalt.”

So he put together a plan that called for the layoffs and $1 million in annual asphalt investments.

Controversy came quickly. Van Elsberg argued that Stufflebean is under pressure from area contractors who don’t have enough work in the slumping economy and want the county to outsource more of its road repairs. Stufflebean denies that’s the motive.

The former roadmaster also questions whether the county will have enough crew to lay all the asphalt it plans to buy.

“He laid off his whole paving crew,” Van Elsberg said.

For 13 years, Dennis Backman was a backhoe operator for the county until he got laid off on New Year’s Eve with two weeks notice.

“I’m 52 years old,” Backman said. “I’ve never lost a job, never drawn unemployment, never been without work.”

Backman questions the need to make cuts, given the at-least-temporary reprieve in timber payments.

Fellow Commissioner Nikki Whitty supports the cuts, arguing it makes more sense to be proactive now. Plenty of residents in Coos County agree, she said.

“There’s a vocal minority,” Whitty said. “But there are also people who agree with what’s going on, who have the confidence in their board of commissioners.

Garth Johnson, 46, was expecting to lose his job as a laborer in the road department, because he’s sixth from the bottom of the seniority list. Now he’s worried about how he’s going to support six children.

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